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“Ah,” Eren said blankly as he looked around. “I have no idea where I am. God, i’m screwed.”
Just moments before, he had been forcing himself to trek through this piece of shit haunted house with his piece of shit friends.
He was violently against going anywhere near the haunted house, his argument being there were plenty of actual fun things to do at the fairgrounds, besides, y’know, pissing themselves in a giant potluck of terror.
And now, here he was, without his merry band of assholes and completely lost. He heard the raspy laugh of the metallic clowns they had passed in the distance, but he didn’t know which direction it was coming from-nor was he entirely sure he wanted to reunite with the things anyway.
He began to sweat.
With a gulp, he began heading down the more brightly lit hallway, figuring his best route was one he could see on. As he got closer, he realized with dread that the pulsing light was a strobe light, which meant there was a 200% chance something would pop out at him.
“Pfft. I can take it. This isn’t real, anyway. Professor Shadis is scarier than this on a good day, this is nothi-oh god. Why.” Eren stopped walking when he saw a dark figure ahead of him, it’s arms waving around and manic laughter filling the hallway.
Eren immediately turned around to begin heading back the other way, when right in front of him-
A motherfucking clown.
“Shit!” He yelped, (he did not squeal) lurching away from it and backing into a wall. From his right, the crazy laughing figure was closing in at alarming speeds, and from his left the clown fucker was looking at him in a way that made him want to take a shower.
“Y-You asshole, just leave me alone alright? This is some bullshit,” He said, his voice breaking slightly with the fear he was feeling. At his attempt to reason, the clown only opened his arms and moved closer, as if asking for a hug. “D-Don’t touch me, agh!” Eren dodged around the clown as it made to grab for him and bolted back the way he came.
He veered right and went down a darker hall, one with smoke blanketing the floor and curling around his ankles. He took a shaky breath, when something hard landed on his left shoulder.
With a pride crushing scream of absolute terror, he went to latch onto the nearest warm body out of habit, and actually got hold of someone and wrapped his arms around them tightly. He shook for a moment, praying that whatever had touched him had somehow been abducted or destroyed or something.
“Oi. Jamie Lee Curtis. Do you mind?”
Eren froze as the warmth he was attached to spoke in an unfamiliar, very done sounding voice. He leaned back but didn’t release the guy as he looked down. It was hard to see, but he could make out black hair, irritation and quite a height difference well enough.
And he could make out the irritation was growing. “Maybe I should rephrase. I don’t give a shit if you mind, cause I sure as hell fucking do.”
Eren blinked, then realized he’d been silent this whole time. “Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to grab you like that, it was a reflex.” Eren explained sheepishly.
“That’d be fine and fucking dandy-if you’d let go of me already.” The guy said, reaching up and trying to yank Eren’s arms off. They didn’t budge.
Eren sweared he could feel the rage emanating off the man. “U-Uhm, well, i’m really sorry about this and all, but i’m not letting go anytime soon. When I get really scared, I latch on to the nearest person until i’m calm enough to let go.” Eren said warily. It was a bad habit, he knew. But he couldn’t help it, not in a place like this.
“I’m sure I could find a way to make you let go,” the guy said threateningly, and Eren felt a different sense of dread wash over him.
“P-Please don’t beat me up! I didn’t even want to come in here, I swear! It was peer pressure I tell you-just please don’t hit me,” Eren pleaded, his voice going desperate. He heard the guy sigh, and felt his shoulders relax from the stiff position they had been in before.
“I’m not going to hit you, brat. You really can’t let go?” He was asked.
“I seriously, seriously wish I could right now. Believe me.” Eren replied, his voice shaky. He jumped a little as he heard other people scream somewhere else in the house. The guy sighed again.
“Fine. But do you have to be wrapped around my whole fucking body? I can’t even walk like this.”
Eren gulped and nodded, not knowing if he could see it or not. He managed to manoeuvre so that he had the guy’s whole left arm clutched to his chest in both of his, but nothing else. “Is this okay?” Eren asked hesitantly.
“Do I have choice if it isn’t?” He responded dryly.
Eren shook his head. “Not unless you changed your mind about kicking my ass.”
“Tch. Fucking-whatever, let’s go already. You were headed down this hall, correct?”
“Y-yeah, I was.” Eren said, and they began walking. There was the occasional moan or scream heard throughout the house, and Eren looked behind them anxiously and saw what must have landed on his shoulder-a bat, hanging from the ceiling. He was lucky it hadn’t hit him in the face; he might’ve passed out.
“So, you say you were peer pressured, but I don’t see any other screaming little shits besides you,” the guy said, breaking the semi-silence.
Eren’s eyes flitted to the guy briefly, unable to make out any specific features before staring ahead warily once more. “I’m pretty sure the assholes ditched me. They know I hate this kind of thing; I just wanted to get through this without freaking out, but now i’ll be lucky if the back of my pants isn’t tinged with brown when I get out of here,” Eren said gloomily, cursing his friends.
He heard the guy actually snort at that, his voice melting into deep little chuckles that made Eren shiver-if the guy felt it, he could just blame it on the fear.
“My shitty friends ditched me too,” the guy said, sounding annoyed. “I don’t care one way or the other for haunted houses, but they like to annoy me however they can; so here I am, friendless and alone, just how I started out in the world.”
Eren surprised himself as he snickered at the ridiculousness of that statement.
“Well, not so much alone anymore,” Eren said suddenly. He blushed when he realized there was no reason to comfort the man when he himself was the scared one, but when the guy spoke again his voice was softer.
“Yeah. I guess not.”
They fell silent after that, and Eren was surprised when he heard whirring and clicking behind them. He glanced back, and there was a robotic line of witches growing smaller the further they walked. He had been so distracted he’d passed by them completely unaware of their presence.
A thought occurred to him then. “I’m Eren, by the way.” He said. He didn’t think the man particularly cared, but he wanted to know more about the guy-he was proving to be more interesting than anything he had seen so far, and he hadn’t even properly seen the guy.
“I’m assuming you want my name in return?” The guy snorted.
Eren pouted. “Well, yeah. I can’t just keep calling you ‘small warm scary guy’ in my head forever.”
“I’ll ignore the ‘small’ comment for now, you lucky shit. Who says we’re going to be in here forever? That light up there could be the exit,” the guy said.
“You’re a difficult little man. Just tell me.” To that he received a pinch on the arm, which made him yelp but didn’t loosen his hold.
“You really are a fucking brat.”
Eren grumbled about angry little men, and he heard the guy growl in irritation before he noticed the light that had been pointed out before. “Oh! I think you’re right, that could be the exit up there.”
Eren began to walk faster, a grumbling Levi keeping pace with him. The light grew brighter, and Eren was blinded for a second upon entering the bright doorway before his vision cleared.
“Ho-ly shit. Okay, Eren was it? Please don’t freak out.”
But Eren had stopped hearing anything other than his heart pounding in his ears. The sight before him was definitely not the exit.
Surrounding them were several, brightly illuminated mirrors, each of which held some sort of god awful thing from his nightmares; Freddy Kreuger, killer clowns (several), Ghostface, Hellraiser, the whole damn gang was here.
Eren jumped as the door they had entered slammed shut behind them, his face paling as his companion spat a curse. “Hell fucking no, they did not just-”
He was cut off as crackly carnival music began to play, and the mirrors-the mirrors began to move. Eren whimpered, glancing around him in a panic as the room slowly began to spin.
Suddenly the music switched from creepy carnival to head splitting death metal, and with a yelp Eren scared so bad he fell to his knees and put his hands over his ears, not even realizing he had released the man beside him. He felt the room get windier, and he curled in closer to himself. The lights began to flash, and he swore this would be the end of him.
He then felt a pair of arms around him, tucking him into a warm chest and obstructing his view of the horrible things around him. It helped to slightly lessen the noise as well, for which he was surprised yet grateful.
He hadn’t realized how badly he was trembling until the fuckery around him slowly came to a stop after a few harrowing minutes, the music switching back to creepy carnival until it gave a robotic groan and shut off. The mirrors took longer to stop spinning, so the only noise in the room was the creaking of machinery around them.
Eren didn’t dare lift his head, knowing that seeing those things dancing around him would make him practically catatonic all over again.
“Oi, Eren,” the guy started, his tone overwhelmingly gentle. It made Eren feel warm. “It’s stopped. Look at me.”
Deciding the least he could do for the guy was listen to him, Eren slowly lifted his head. Teal eyes met icy blue, both of which widened as they made contact with each other.
“Fuck me,” Eren heard the guy whisper to himself. “This is the first time i’ve actually seen your face.”
Eren nodded absentmindedly, but was too busy ogling the other man to respond properly. He had sharp, smooth features, his face cut into beautiful angles that made his eyes look like they could slice you up in a glance. His hair as was black as he’d thought, parted in the middle with the strands cut so they fell softly onto his eyelids.
All in all, he took Eren’s breath away.
“Y-You, uh...thank you,” Eren managed to say, barely stopping himself from calling the man beautiful or something equally embarrassing right then and there.
“You’re...you’re welcome,” he responded, before blinking and seeming to gather his wits. “It’s Levi, by the way. My name.”
Eren jolted in surprise. Levi. Levi, Levi, Levi. “Levi,” Eren breathed, and watched as Levi swallowed.
“Yeah. What do you say we get out of this shitty place?” Levi said, eyes never leaving Eren’s face.
“Yeah,” Eren parroted, mimicking Levi as he stood. “That’d be fantastic.”
The door was open now, and Eren couldn’t help but notice Levi’s eyes roaming dangerously for whoever had shut the door. It made him feel warm again, although the perpetrators were long gone.
“Come on,” Levi said, and Eren nearly toppled over in shock as Levi latched their hands together. “I’m heckling the next douchefuck in clown makeup into telling us where the exit is.”
Eren was glad for the darkness now, as it hid his blush. He had a face and name to match that godly voice and it made his heart pound in a good way this time, knowing this fine specimen’s hand was warm clasped in his.
It didn’t take them long to find a so called ‘douchefuck in clown makeup’ and Levi made good on his word. Eren didn’t have time admire Levi’s thug persona as he was hastily tugged to the exit. It turns out it wasn’t far, and the hellish room they had been shoved into was one of the final 'attractions' of the place.
When they finally made it outside, the change in atmosphere was incredible. It went from dark and eerie to loud and bright, the sounds of laughter, chatter, and music that wasn’t deathcore filling the air.
Eren leaned over, regretfully disconnecting their hands and putting his hands on his knees, breathing a little heavily. They had rushed out of there pretty quickly.
“Thank fuck. I never thought i’d be relieved to see sweaty dumbasses and shitty fair rides,” Levi mumbled. Eren chuckled and stood to his full height, a relieved smile on his face.
“Same here,” Eren said, unable to stop smiling now. Levi seemed to notice this and quirked an immaculate eyebrow.
“What’re you grinning about?” He asked warily, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“Isn’t it obvious? I made it out of there without shitting myself, I don’t see my friends so I probably beat those jerks to the exit, and the guy that helped me accomplish these things is incredibly hot.” Eren held up a finger for each reason, and when he got to the third he gave Levi a little grin that was full of intentions.
Levi’s eyes widened marginally, both eyebrows raised now. “You’re actually a cocky little fucker when you’re not pissing yourself, aren’t you?” His tone held disbelief.
“I try,” Eren said, grin widening at the not decidedly negative response. “So what do you say? Can I add your number to my list of accomplishments?”
Levi snorted, but their bodies were considerably closer to each other than they had been before. “That was the most fucking awful attempt for my number i’ve ever received. I could be some kind of creep, you know. Preying on young boys who get scared in haunted houses.” He pointed out, eyes roaming Eren’s chest as they were inches apart now.
“I’m twenty-two. I think I can decide for myself whether you’re a creep or not. Besides, if you’re the predator, I wouldn’t mind being preyed on.” Eren said easily, looking down at Levi and biting his lip, forgetting where they were momentarily.
“Again, fucking awful. You’re lucky you look like you do, it counteracts the shit your mouth spews.”
“Oh? And what do I look like?” Eren asked, leaning closer. Levi reciprocated, their noses almost touching.
“How about you find out over dinner?” Levi said with a smirk, their lips a hairsbreadth away before he backed off, leaving a dazed Eren in his wake. Levi held his hand out, and it took him a moment to snap out of it and hand him his phone.
Eren took his phone back when he finished, watching with wide eyes as Levi sidled up to him and patted his cheek. “Text me sometime, Eren.” With a final smirk of triumph at the expression on Eren’s face, Levi began to walk away.
Eren watched him go with a blush on his cheekbones and a grin on his face. He never thought he’d thank his friends for dragging him into a house of horrors, or that he’d find something definitely not horrible within.
He looked at his phone, seeing the new addition of Levi in his contacts.
Yeah. Definitely not horrible.